Mouse On Mars

Mouse On
Mars create densely layered tracks with the intended results being grounded
between radical experimentalsism and timeless pop appeal. Designed to yield
more with repeated listens, songs are minutely detailed. Drum tracks, for
example, often contain over twenty different layers: live drums, programmed,
digitally processed and various combinations and/or mutations of the
aforementioned.

Fills and
breaks are set, arranged, and placed individually as opposed to being looped. The
results are rich, deep, wonderfully varied. Mouse On Mars' sound links them to
the club-music scene, as do their many remixes and collaborations with members
of the dance-music world. Yet their association with the formalized and
utilitarian world of dance music is ironic, as the band’s raison d’etre is to
place electronic flies in any aural ointment they choose to muck through. A
series of 10 albums and numerous remixes has come off as primarily intent on
dashing expectations, from the ambient-house ectoplasms of 1994’s Vulvaland and
1995’s slightly more structured Iaora Tahiti; to the flighty and funny
electronics, spluttering horns and acoustic-guitar samples of 2000’s more
“organic” Niun Niggung; to the forest of sonic porcupine quills that is
Idiology. Radical Connector (2004) further granulated the MoM aesthetic into
nine vaguely pop-oriented songs, ever heavier on the beats and increasingly
hinging the tunes on the vocals and drumming of longtime collaborator Dodo
Nkishi.